Government Can’t Create Agricultural Transformation – Adesina

Akinwumi Adesina

The president of African Development Bank, Mr. Akinwunmi Adesina has noted that government can’t afford to make the desired transformation in agriculture. To him, it is the private sector that is charged with the task of transformation.


For Adesina, the government ‘can only enable it by making more room for businesses to intervene. We could do this by putting the right policies and regulations in place, by creating strong institutions, and by building sufficient infrastructure. But there is not much else government can do with a reasonable measure of efficiency.’

The former minister of Nigeria’s agriculture sector noted this in an article titled “Agriculture as a Business: Approaching Agriculture as an Investment Opportunity.”

According to Adesina, “The problem in Nigeria was that the private sector was largely non-existent in agriculture. Take fertiliser and seeds.

“For 40 years, the federal government had been procuring these inputs and filtering them down through layers and layers of state and local governments until, in theory, they got to the smallholder farmers who needed them. Except the theory rarely played out in practice.

“Our data indicated that only 11% of the fertilizer procured by the government got to farmers in the end.
“Since the seeds also rarely got to where they were going, some suppliers started selling the government grain instead – counterfeit seed.

“In fact, the system existed to serve the rent-seekers attached to it, not the smallholders who were supposed to benefit from it,” Adesina revealed.

Highlighting the prospect of agriculture, Adesina noted that the bank’s goal is to ensure optimum use of the strong points of countries in Africa.

“Agriculture can pay. Hundreds of millions of small farmers, thousands of local agribusinesses, and hundreds of seed and food companies will make it pay, as long as the development community and governments are willing to try something new,” Adesina posited.